An engrossing and timely entry in a promising series.
A woman, accused of terrorism to fit her galactic government’s false narrative, fights to clear her name and keep her young family safe in Strong’s SF thriller sequel.
In Home: Interstellar (2015), 20-something Meriel Hope exposed the galaxywide corruption that enabled a bloody ambush aboard the starship Princess10 years before, which left her, her sister Elizabeth, and other children orphaned and traumatized. Now, in the year 2188, both sisters have found some semblance of peace on a rural planet called Haven. Meriel and her partner, John, are loving parents to her stepdaughters, Sandy and Becky. But then the powers that be—including the government of the United Nations of Earth—launch a media campaign to discredit Meriel, including a faked video of her retracting her accusations. The footage triggers Meriel’s painful flashbacks of her experience on the Princessbut also reignites her determination to set the record straight. Meanwhile, tensions run high between Haven’s farmers and newly arrived space refugees. When several people with scarred stomachs are found dead, Meriel immediately suspects that the camp has been infiltrated by the Archers—a quasi-religious group loyal to the Archtrope, who rules from a Vatican-styled palace on the planet Calliope. While Meriel, John, and the girls explore the glittering space station LeHavre, the Archers and their collaborators launch their final attempt to silence Meriel. The fictional universe that Strong has created for this series feels impressively real; the author has clearly put a lot of work into developing its many facets, from its seedy bars to its spirituality to its fictional historical figures. Indeed, readers may sometimes feel overloaded with worldbuilding information—although a glossary is included. Many of these futuristic elements are fun, but Strong also effectively tackles serious topics, such as media bias and bodily autonomy. There are gory moments, which are rare but memorable, and they’ll stick with readers. Additionally, in a genre full of brooding teen protagonists, Meriel is a refreshingly adult heroine, and John, a doting father to his daughters and supportive partner, stands out for his unconventional masculinity.
An engrossing and timely entry in a promising series.Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9863599-5-8
Page Count: 502
Publisher: Impulse Fiction
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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